Something has gone wrong inside the Democrat Party's Senate strategy in Maine. The party didn’t get the message that banking on a must-win election on a guy with a Nazi tattoo was a bad gamble, and now panic is finally starting to set in. And it’s entirely their fault. Democrats backed an unvetted candidate, and now they’re stuck with a mess a week before a primary, with who knows what else is about to drop.
Graham Platner is the Democrats' presumptive nominee to challenge Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), and he's already facing intense media scrutiny over his past relationships with women. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, to his credit, saw this coming. He personally recruited Maine Gov. Janet Mills in the primary specifically to keep a candidate like Platner off the ticket. But the polls showed that all the enthusiasm was for the guy with the Nazi tattoo, and Mills suspended her campaign. Now, as more and more damaging information about Platner comes out, Senate Democrats are scrambling to figure out what to do.
The party has a serious problem. Platner is an outsider with limited vetting, a sordid personal history under the full glare of national media, and a primary just eight days out. Maine law allows the party to replace its nominee if the primary winner withdraws by July 13, but let’s face it, that would be politically impossible given the timing.
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So Democrats may have no choice but to rally around a man many of them have real doubts about. Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) put the party line on record. "We know that at this point this man can still win the race, and as long as he continues, I think we'll all be there," Gallego said.
That's quite the ringing endorsement.
Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) was more candid. "I've heard some of my colleagues' concerns about what we've read in the papers, but at the end of the day, we've got to win," Cortez Masto said.
So much for character, right?
It’s obvious that for Democrats, the need to win the election matters more than supporting a pervy Nazi creep.
Some are still pretending that the scandals plaguing Platner aren’t even a problem.
"I think it's important for us to focus on the issues facing working families a little bit more than Graham Platner's marriage," Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said.
Of course, the issue isn't Platner's marriage; it's Platner's character and the fact that he maintains an active account on a platform dubbed "Predator's Paradise."
The wild card, of course, is the fact that Mills hasn't fully left the race. She told the Portland Press Herald, "People have the impression that I 'withdrew' or 'dropped out,' but I simply suspended active campaigning. I am still on the ballot." Some allies are reportedly pushing her to reenter, and her comments have fueled that speculation. But this would be a whole new disaster, because a new Mills campaign would blow up what’s left of Democrat unity in Maine ahead of a primary the party can’t afford.
In short, Democrats have a huge mess to deal with in Maine, and the fact that they only just realized this tells you a lot.
